2012-06-05 - Heroes Crisis - Sandblast
It's not quite the Land of the Dead, for those who have been present there. Tonight, at one of the Caravan stops, a group of slumbering.. Ogres? Trolls? Sit around a campfire at what might pass as a ruinous oasis, eating meat on sticks with a group of skeletons. The slumbering ogres or orcs or whatever they are are about to get a rude awakening. Something falls out of the sky not far from their campfire. Something big, green and yelling "Geronimo" all the way down. Thud. The desert ground cracks in a spider pattern outwards from the point of impact. Starfire comes falling through the air as well, hitting the ground several feet over from She-Hulk in a sparkly splat! No red white and blue, which is very disappointing to be sure, but She-Hulk had cursed them. Just as the big green woman had predicted, get too comfortable in one wolrd and you are bound to be sucked out of it and thrown to the next horror show. So...inher scarlet and gold cheerleader uniform she finds herself splutting and clawing her way up out of the sand. No falling for the air like the rest of the crew. And so, the squishily, sandily landed trio of girls would find themselves surrounded by a group of orks, ogres, and skeletons with swords, none of htem looking friendly.. Several of them drooling from dripping maws over at the trio. "Excuse me, gentlemen," She-Hulk notes as she picks herself up. "Sorry about that. I don't fly so well." She doesn't LAND that well either, at least not when she wasn't ready for the fall. Unless it involves Wolverine and complimenting his aerodyanmics. Starfire rises up as well, "Hello Toothy Smelly Green Things that are drooling!" Liberty climbs out of the sand and shakes herself off, looking about at all the um, friendly faces. "Hi. We come in peace. Take us to your leader." It works in movies, so why not in crazy dream slash nightmare lands too? To the girls she says, "This is a new one." Then to Starfire, "Starfire! Hey!" The orcs adavnce, "They come as lunch?" One of them speaks, and another shakes his head, "No, dancing girls." A third contemplates, "Dance, then eat them?" "There is absolutely *no* way I am changing into a Leia Slave Girl outfit for you," She-Hulk informs the ogres. Starfire is...nodded to. She doesn't know her, but that's seriously par for the course around here. Too many weird people she doesn't know. [S Starfire waves over at Liberty, "Hello Friend Hero GIrl." she paused over, "Oh, I would enjoy putting one on. But I do not think we have any to try out here." She glances over at She-Hulk. Yay new friends! There is a screeching sound and something resembling a blazing white ball of light streaks across the sky like a meteor and impacts the ground with a small explosion. The explosion happens about two hundred yards behind where the Orcs make their camp. After a couple of minutes, a figure climbs out looking a little worse for wear. Vanguard shakes his head a little and groans softly. His costume has begun to show signs of wear and tear, the visor over his eyes iscracked down the middle, and he is pretty dirty from his past experiences in the different planes of existence. He had once again lost Kara, and the one he knew as Captain America in the city with all of the undead. Now, under the bright suns of the desert, he walks towards to where he sees people, not close enough yet to pick out different faces. The monsters still advanced on the group now, turning around and shifting as they argued within thesmelves as they came face to face wtih the fallen Vanguard. There were severla dozen of them, all armed and looking hungry and bored. It might remind the hero of an old Dungeons and Dragons campaign. She-Hulk rolls her eyes. "Okay. You want a dance? You got it." And with that, she...in true She-Hulk fashion...throws the first punch. Or more accurately, sweep. She's trying to knock away as many weapons as she can in one stroke. That, gentlemen, constitutes a 'warning shot'. Of Hulk proportions. Starfire sees She-Hulk throw the first punch, and joins in! She goes to charge the group as well with her fist, intent on slamming it intot he green maw of a lumbering orc! Upon seeing monsters and whatnot attack what he can now see is an orange woman and a large green woman...he only has a couple seconds to marvel about that...before he springs into action himself. He figured the orange woman was probably Starfire, but the green one he hasn't met yet. No surprise there. Kicking off the ground, he extends his hand, firing a white beam of light into the nearest Orc, sending him back into the guy behind him. His feet touch the ground as he rears back his fist and shooting it out towards the jaw ofthe next orc that steps up to him, knocking him skywards. "Hello, ladies." He says by way of greeting before hopping back out of range of an ax wielding member of the horde. The punch from She-Hulk sends one ork flying up to the air and blasting up, up, and away! A couple other orks look at She-Hulk with what.. Might be looks of pure adoration and love as they charge in towards her! Meanwhile a trio of skeletons charge in over towards Vangard, trying to flank him then as the area turns to a huge melee around the heroes! She-Hulk lets them charge. They're 'just' orcs. They can't really hurt her, although, "You know, this isn't foreplay!" It seems it might be from their point of view, but it certainly isn't from hers! What does she do, what does she do? She keeps fighting, of course. Starfire ducks back, one of them biting down hard on her arm as she tries to shake it off, and she ends up getting another one on the other arm as well! Vanguard has no idea of the capabilities of these things, so he's treating them as if they were a real threat to him. He turns his upper body slightly to dodge a weapon. But as the skeletons and orcs begin to flank him, he comments. "Time to clear the air a bit." He leaps up and slams his fist into the ground. Hard. The slam creates a shockwave of raw power that knocks over any foes within ten feet of him. Now that he could see a little, he aims one of his blasts for one of the orcs biting at Starfire's arm. The ork on Starfire's arm was blasted off by the shot from Vanguard, and the shockwave sent the skeletons over to a pile of bones as they clattered down to the ground! A lumbering troll shambled over towards She-Hulk, trying to bash her with a giant Liefeldian scaled club as an ogre went to try and belly flop on top of Vanguard! She-Hulk dances to the side, attempting to relieve the troll of his club. Or just use it to send him flying if he doesn't let go fast enough. Either result would be perfectly acceptable to the green giantess. Starfire is currently shaking the other hand off of the ork upon it right as she's SLAMMED down by the troll that SHe-Hulk tossed to her! She catches it, and then swings around the troll like a club towards a group of skeletons, "I believe I have made a Strike!" Vanguard looks up as the orc decends upon him. He takes a large step to the left and watches as it impacts the ground face first. He shakes his head slowly. "Starfire, I think you might mean home run." As he's talking a club impacts the back of his head and shatters. Showing no signs of being hurt, he exhales slowly and turns around. "You guys are really starting to annoy me." He uppercuts the Orc, sending him skywards. "Do you think they'll eventually get the idea and give up?" Blue Beetle has had better days... weeks... months... YEARS if truth be told. He's wandered around this place for what seems an eternity without any better idea of how he got here or even where here IS. He's just glad that there's no press around because he wouldn't want to be on a front page looking like this. His costume is slashed in various places from too close shaves with death traps, scorched from some dragon-things, and half of his mask has torn away, leaving his brown hair poking out from the gaps and waving in the night air. He trudges his way along the tracless wastes, wishing he had a compass... or a swimming pool. Bit by bit he makes his way up the top of a dune, and then lookds down at the camp below. He blinks in surprise at what he sees and has to convince himself it's not a mirage. PEOPLE! he takes a step towards them and loses his balance on the sands, tumbling head over heels down the sandy slope and finally coming to rest after knocking a couple of orcs off their feet like a human bowling ball. As Blue Beetle goes in a giant beetle-ball and sends orks sprawling all over as he faces them, a couple of orks look over at Vanguard as if in consideration, "Nope." Another goes, "Nuh-Uh." And a group gleam, "This fun!" Almost like children being told they shouldn't swat at a beehive wtih a stick as they get up again to freshly charge the heroes! She-Hulk gives Starfire a thumbs up, then tosses one orc into a bunch of others. It makes a quite satisfying tangle. "Hrm. How many of these guys are there?" Too many, in the big green woman's opinion. Not that she can do anything to reduce thenumbers right now. Short of killing them, which she's not about to do, even with the high likelihood that they aren't real. Starfire calls out, "Their numbers seem to be self perpetuating!" She swings around her Troll-As-Club and then releases it down on a group of skeletons. Vanguard crosses his arms over his chest and fires dual beams out on each side of him, breaking the approaching skeletons. "If they keep coming like this, we may have to consider a tactcical retreat. I'm starting to get tired, here." He suddenly liftis his hand, the orc the threew up there awhile ago. Blue Beetle flips up to his feet, which is a good thing as a club would have been crunching into his head instead of the sand if he hadn't. These orks might be stronger than him and itching for a fight, but at least he's more agile. Grasping the arm of the one who tried to brain him, a quick twist causes the ork to go off balance and also turns him into a shield for Beetle from a couple others that thought the sound of his bones crunching would be sweet. "So I hope this wasn't an invite only event. I haven't been able to log into facebook for a while now to RSVP..." Crouching low, he sweeps the legs out from under an approaching skeleton, sending it falling into a heap of bone. "Ok, so is it Halloween already or something? I didn't think I'd been out of touch THAT long..." You know. I don't think these guys are real. I really think we're in some kind of holodeck or danger room setup." She grabs an orc and throws it at the skeletons. Hard. "Great. Okay. There has to be...hrm...some way to stop them from coming. It's timeto stop treating the symptoms!" Starfire goes to launch another one over, and goes to rapidly punch through a few more, as even more fresh waves come, "They seem to be always getting up after they go on down!" Vanguard kicks an Orc in the chest as he comments, "I've long past put that whole 'this isn't real' thing out of my head. It was around the time I fought off a horde of zombies with a guy named Captain America." He grabs two by the throat and flies up, flingingthem down into the mass horde of the rest, knocking them down like pins. "My stamina is usually pretty good, but I haven't eaten in a couple days, and I've been in one battle after another. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. They're not hard to knock down, it's getting them to stay down that's the problem!" He headbutts another after punching through his axe, ripping the metal weapon apart with his gloved hands. Blue Beetle looks around and shouts out, "End Program!" When that doesn't have any more effect than to cause more monsters to wander his way, he shrugs his shoulders, "Ok, Holodeck idea is out..." Ducking under the clawing fingertips of a skeleton and to the side of a club chop, Beetle pivots and punches between the rips of the Skeleton to hit the ork with the club, then bodychecks the skeleton into crumbling. "Maybe a better vantage point..." He leapfrogs up on the shoudlers of an ork and over its head, springboarding off the helmet of another ork as he looks about. "You know that tent over there is doing one HECK of a clown car impression..." Landing he reaches to his side and pulls out his trusty BB gun. "Let's see if i can play big bad wolf and blow it down..." he lines up his shot, pulls the trigger... and groans. "I forgot I had to cannibalize the power cell on it earlier..." he punches an ork with the gun and snatches up his club. "Ok, I guess I have to do this the old fashioned way..." with a sigh of resignation, he dashes offtowards the center of the camp. As Blue Beetle rushes twoards teh central campsite, what happens is all the monsters suddenly stop what they're donig and start rushing over to try and intercept him and defend it! The dozens remaining then, seeming to all go towards ina a swarm to try and stop him from smashing! She-Hulk sees what's going on...and charges after the bug, doing her best to throw orcs away from him. He's got a good idea, clearly, and if she can keep enough of them off his back that he can follow it through, then they might even win this one. She hopes. Oh yeah. Smash time! The bug seesm to know what he's doing, so Starfire fires her Starbolts machine gun style over to intercept the orcs going to play flyswatter! Vanguard also sees what's going on and takes flight. He strafe-fires his energy blasts, helping Starfire carve a way for Blue Beetle. He banks around again, firing beams of brilliant white energy, attempting to keep the horde off at a distance, while She-Hulk ta kes care of anything that gets within melee range. "Go, Beetle, go!" He murmurs under his breath. Blue Beetle acks as he suddenly finds he's the guest of honor at this party... "Oh SUUURE, you all love me now but where were you when I needed people to help me move?" He barely drops to the ground in time to avoid his face getting relocated to the back of his head. Luckily another ork got that honor in his place. Punches shoot out at a couple of groins. There's no time for niceties in a fight like this. He pops back up out of the swarm of Orks and kicks one in the check to springboard up onto the shoulders of another. A quick snapkick to the face of yet another Ork and he looks for a good place to flee to... and sees She-Hulk... "Oh my god... if that's their Queen I think I'm in deep trouble... But at least she's a better looker than they are." At least if Beetle goes down, it involves being smashed upsides the head by a very pretty green woman. There are worse fates, and it's at least probably something he and Booster would likely have on thier BUcket List. As Blue Beetle lands over in the campsite and starts smashing things, orks begin to vanish! And new ones do not appear to take their place! She-Hulk moves towards Beetle. "Hide behind me if you have to. Let's destroy this thing!" She aims a nice, solid kick right into the middle of their fire. After all, real fire doesn't hurt her that much, and if it's illusory fire, it certainly won't do any harm to the green amazon. Starfire flies in over the area, going to pick up one of the skeletons to tryu and toss it over to another as bones clatter about, "This sort of bowling is fun!" Vanguard only knows Beetle from reputation only...having never met the guy in person. He lands near Starfire, launching energy blast after energy blast. "I'm glad one of us is having fun, Starfire. Later, you'll have to tell me who the green lady is." She was hot, but he wasn't going to say that out loud. "I wonder of Orion Slave Girls exist here?" Blue Beetle doesn't know who she is, but the big green girl doesn't seem to be on the sides of these Orks and things. At least not by the way she's tossing them about like ragdolls. And she seems to be willing to act as a shield for him. Hetakes a bit of solace in that and goes back to his task of destruction. "So, who are you babe? A cousin of Jade or something?" His club crashes into the tents as he pounds on the campsite and he finally starts noticing the population dropping. "And just when I thought my Agoraphobia was about to be cured..." He looks like he's about to fall over before the last tent does though from sheer fatigue. Starfire moves to cover She-Hulk, "Firend green girl, I believe that Mister Blue Beetle is asking if you are an alien slave girl who wears a bikini!" She understands that reference at least! She goes to fire streaks of plasma at the remaining monsters. As the last of the campsite is smashed, all of the monsters disappear and leave nothing behind over than the shredded wrecks fo the campsite. "Not alien. Occasionally wear bikini." She grins and then flexes. "No idea who Jade is. For those who don't know, I'm She-Hulk." Starfire pauses over, "Sot hat would mean there is a He-Hulk. OR an It-Hulk!" Yay! New friends! Dedrick moves to stand with the group, "I'm Vanguard." He offers a small wave and then finds a rock to sit down on. He pulls his mask away from his face a little to allow the dust to sift out and to allow some cool air to actually hit his face. He does make sure that he doesn't pull it too far away so that people can get a look. He nods to She-Hulk. "That's Starfire's way of saying she's glad to meet you. And so am I." Someone had mentioned a Hulk before, but he couldn't remember who it was now. He didn't even know what day it was or anything. Blue Beetle smiles a lopsided grin and steps towards She-Hulk offering out his hand, "Nice to meet you. I'm the Blue Beeeeeeeetttllllllllleeeeee!!" the last part is stretched out as the sand underneath his feet suddenly collapses in a sinkhole, sucking him down out of sight to parts unknown in this maze once again. As the heroes relax after their battle, an Ork head rolls nearby and speaks in a disembodied voice: We are an illusion and yet we are reality. We came from nothingness, out of time, out of place. We are the link back home, but if you do not solve us, you will never reach your goal. Starfire lets out a yelp as Beetle vanishes, "Friend Beetle.." And then she whirsl around as the ORk flaunts over, her eyes flashing as it seems to vanish again. Vanguard stands up and looks at the rolling head that talks. "Now..that's just creepy." He then notices that Beetle seems to disappear. "Dammit, it happened again. Everytime I meet someone they seem to vanish on me. Like Kara and Captain America." "Nah, he's just the Hulk. He came first, so I ended up She-Hulk." And then the Beetle vanishes. "Crap. And riddles. I hate riddles." She murmurs it under her breath, as if to commit it to memory.